


Not Falling but Slipping

by BarefootGirl



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-02
Updated: 2013-05-02
Packaged: 2017-12-10 05:24:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/782311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarefootGirl/pseuds/BarefootGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"We looked around and saw the crap that was going on, and said fuck it. The mess you're making upstairs, even we can't sort it. So screw Heaven, and your little temper tantrums because oh noes we’ve been left on our own we can’t handle it.”</i>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Or: Angels are dicks.  Ask anyone in Heaven's secretarial pool.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Taking place after S8e21 (The Great Escapist)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Falling but Slipping

 

They weren’t planning on taking any new jobs - the one they had to finish was sort of foremost in everyones’ mind, even if they weren’t quite sure yet how you cured a demon, Dean's bacon jokes aside.  But while they were trying to figure that out, there was a nest of vampires who’d decided that the town of Oakton, West Virginia was the perfect place to set up shop, and they happened to be in the area… And yeah, just maybe Dean had been getting antsy with the need to decapitate something.  That had been Sam’s thought, anyway, and Cas had nodded when Sam brought up the job, so the angel was thinking it, too.

Dean liked to think that he was taking care of everyone.  This was the least they could do, in return.

But when they’d gotten there, two hunters had already started the job.  Dean left Sam and Cas in the Impala, and waded in to help with the cleanup.  Yeah, maybe most other hunters wanted Winchester heads on a pike, but you didn’t leave someone’s back unprotected.

“Dude.”  The hunter was around Dean’s age, ragged around the edges and shaggy everywhere else, but the tired grin on his face was nothing but pleased-ta-seeya. “Thanks for the hand.  I’m Max.  That’s Tariq.”

The other hunter was older,  the silvery-white of his beard matched by the cloth wrapped around his head, and flat on his ass after the last vamp tried to mow him over in a final escape that didn’t work.  “Our thanks,” he said, seemingly recovered from the tackle, not even slightly out of breath.  “We didn’t know anyone else was in the area.  Avi is usually better informed than that.”

”Yeah well, we were just passing through.  I’m Dean.”

Tariq’s eyes widened slightly, then narrowed.  “Winchester?”

“Um.  Yeah?”  He tensed, not sure if he was going to have to fight his way out, glad that he’d made Sammy wait in the car.  His brother and Cas could get away - not that they would, the idiots, and now he had to figure out how to get out of here without them trying to race to his rescue…..

“Huh.  Well, all right, my ego can handle being rescued by a Winchester, I guess.”  Tariq’s smile wasn’t as open as Max’s, but it had the same welcome, and he took Dean’s hand up without hesitation.  “Where’s your brother?”

“Out in the car,” Dean said.  “Didn’t seem like you needed more than one set of hands to finish things up.”

“More hands make swifter work,” Max said cheerfully.  “The least we can do is offer some hospitality. “Home-cooked dinner and beds more comfortable than anything you’ll find on the road, right Tariq?”

Tariq hesitated, then nodded.  “We would be honored to be your hosts, this evening.”

Dean thought wistfully of his memory foam back at the bat cave, Sammy’s continued weakness even though he swore he was doing better, and how Cas was still moving too damned gingerly, and made a snap decision.  “Glad of it.”

 

#

The hunters’ set-up was an old garage, large enough to have handled 18-wheelers back in its day, and Dean admitted to a twinge of envy when they walked into the massive space, a car up on struts, tools laid out, and music with a distinct techno edge blasting through speakers from the loft in the back.  His fingers twitched a little with the urge to get Baby up and give her a thorough once-over.

“Avi!” Max yelled.  “Turn down the goddamned music, we got company!”

There was no response.  

“Avi!”  Max shook his head, and disappeared up the stairs to the loft.  Thirty seconds later, the music cut out, and they could hear themselves think.

“Sorry about that.  Avi swears she can’t think without music.  We’ve tried making her use headphones, but….”  Tariq shrugged.

“Avi’s a hunter?”

“Nah.  I mean, she could be, she’s got the reflexes, but she’s better at research.  She has an almost perfect sense for that jobs are serious, and what are mop-ups.  Very useful.  Anyway, she’s too young still.  I didn’t let Max go on a hunt until he was eighteen, and he’ been begging me for years.”

“She’s a child?”  Cas hadn’t said much since being introduced to the other men, but his expression showed clearly what he thought about that. 

“I’d advise you not to call her that,” Tariq said with a chuckle, ushering them past the workbenches to where their living quarters were.  It was cozy without being cluttered, sofas set around a large screen television, a kitchenette against the far wall, and an oversized hammock strung between pillars.  Three doors were set against the wall, all closed.  “Can I get you something to drink?”

“Beer, if you have it,” Dean said, and Sam nodded.  Cas shook his head, and then said “coffee?”  

“Of course.  Max!  Your coffee-making skills are requested.”  He gave a faint shrug.  “I do not drink caffeine, and so have been banned from making the coffee ever again.”

“Because it tasted like soggy dirt,” a voice said from overhead.

“There you are,” Tariq said, looking up.  The others followed his lead.

“Sorry, I went out for a run.”  The girl slung her leg over the open windowsill, and slid down the pipe set into the wall with the ease of someone who did that a lot.  Sam made a guess at sixteen, maybe seventeen, slender, with a long brown ponytail, wearing a bright red tank and black sweats.  She landed on her feet, and turned to face them. She’d been sweating, but had obviously taken time to cool off before coming back inside, and form her features, she was related to the older Hunter.    “Didn’t know we were expecting company.”

“We weren’t the only ones to investigate the nest,” Max said, heading for the coffee maker.  “You were right about how many there were, by the way.  Avi, that’s Dean, Sam, and Cas.”

She turned to look at them, her gaze flickering over them one by one, stopping when she hit Cas.  Her face went from mildly curious to stone cold, brown eyes widening and her entire body tensing, as though she was caught between flight and fight.  “Castiel.”

There was a second of silence, ozone crackling in the air.  Sam went really quiet, while Dean’s hand reached for the demon knife, neither of them prepared to attack, but ready if it was needed.  Cas stepped forward, his face doing that weird thing that meant he was going deep into angel mojo again, and got not quite up in her face, not as close as he crowded Dean, but closer than was really friendly.

“I don’t know you,” he said, his voice flat.

“Avi?  Is there a problem?”  Tariq and Max had echoed Dean and Sam’s positions, setting themselves up to counter whatever the newcomers might do, but waiting for a signal.

“No.”  Avi laughed, the sound both bitter and amused.  “No, you wouldn’t.  It’s all right, guys.  I was just…surprised.” 

She didn’t look surprised.  She looked nervous, and a little angry.

“You’re not human,” Cas said.  “You are… of Heaven.”

Dean didn’t let go of the knife.  These days, that wasn’t much of a recommendation, to their way of thinking.

“Avi?” Max asked again.

She licked her lips, and then let the tension slide out of her body.  “It’s okay, guys.  Castiel is… from back home.  But I don’t think it’s a problem.”  She raised her eyebrows, as though to ask Castiel if it was, in fact, a problem. He tilted his head, but didn’t say anything.

“All right then,” Tariq said.  “Let me get your beers and you can, um, catch up?”

 

#

They settled on the sofas, the girl -not a girl - sitting on the back of the loveseat with Tariq taking up most of the cushion space, an elongated watchdog, his shoulder lightly touching her leg.  Dean had noticed the blade strapped to his thigh, and Tariq had noticed him noticing, so there was no confusion there: the older man would kill to defend her, if that was required.  Max, having set the coffee up and poured Castiel a cup, disappeared behind one of the doors, closing it firmly behind him.  Whatever was about to go down, he clearly wanted no part of it.

“So….” Sam said.  “Who wants to start?”

“Rock-paper-scissors, loser talks?” the girl suggested.

“Yeah, no,” Dean said, and Sam laughed, a muffled cough of a noise, and Dean glared until he shut up.

“Who are you?”  Cas’ voice was still flat, but his eyes were puzzled, like he thought he should understand something and didn’t, and that was pissing him off.  

“My name’s Avi,” she said with a shrug, taking a sip of her beer, but her eyes never left Castiel.  Dean thought that she was waiting, the same as they were.  The wrong thing could set this room off like a bomb.

“Avika,” Tariq said, the same tone that Sam said _Sam_ when Dean introduced his brother as Sammy. Dean didn’t know what that meant, but he knew the tone.

“No, who _are_ you?”  Now Cas sounded exasperated, like she was intentionally missing the point.

“Hey Cas,” Sam said.  “I thought you knew all your brothers and sisters up there in Heaven.  So how -“

“I do not know all - there were many garrisons.”

“I’m not one of his sisters,” Avi said, and the bitterness was clear.  “I’m nobody.  A nothing.”

“You’re not an angel?”  Sam looked between the two, then at Dean, then back at Castiel.  “But I thought you said-“

“She is of the _B’a’amt’r_.”  Cas’s eyes were narrowed, and he was studying her with that stupid head tilt thing.  “Of the makers-of-order, the clerks of Heaven.”

“So wait, there really _is_ a secretarial pool?”  Dean almost laughed, and looked over at Sam, who gave him a bitchface for interrupting.  “I thought Metatron was-“

“He’s here?”  Avi shook her head, the ponytail swinging.  “Bastard.  And he never bothered to come to the poker games, either.  Yeah, there’s a secretarial pool.  You think angels run around making sure everything’s kept in order?  No, they give orders and they carry out orders but they never bother to think about how it all works, in-between.”  She studied her beer, then looked down at Tariq fondly.  “Not that different from down here, really, but at least here were get Administrative Assistant’s Day and the occasional pay raise.”

“Were we supposed to be paying you?” Tariq asked, mock-surprised.

“Don’t worry, I took it out of petty cash, you’ll never notice.”

The banter had the well-worn feel of familiarity to it, a call-and-response both Winchesters recognized on a gut level.  Somehow that, more than anything else, eased the last bit of tension in Dean’s gut. Stupid, maybe - probably - but it wasn’t a conscious decision.

“Why are you here?” Cas asked again, like he still wasn’t getting it.

She shrugged, puckered up her mouth in a smile, and for an instant Dean could see it, the otherworldly echo inside the human flesh.  “Why’re you?  No, don’t tell me, I know.  You’re here because you were _sent_.  All part of the game, Heaven’s little fuck-you to the rest of Creation.”

“I-“   Cas hesitated.  The angel had that wounded, what-just-happened confused look on his face, and Dean wanted to defend him, but there was a lot of truth in what she’d said, even if it wasn’t fair.  And Sam was still giving him that “don’t open your mouth again Dean you’ll just fuck it up” look.

“Avi.”  Tariq rested one hand on her leg, a calming motion that didn’t quite take.

“Yeah, I know.  Their issues, not mine.  Not my monkey, not my circus any more.  And… I’ve heard about you, Castiel.  Anyone who winds Naomi up like that, you’re already earning points.”  She made a face.  “I never had to deal with her, but I heard stories.  Bitch, and power-hungry in a way all Heaven couldn’t fill.”

“Yes.”  The two of them looked at each other, and the rest of the room might as well not have existed.  

“So you what, walked out on Heaven?”  Dean figured he was the only one who was going to interrupt the heavenly mind-meld that was going on there.

“We _chose,”_ she said _. “_ We looked around and saw the crap that was going on, and said fuck it. The mess you're making upstairs, even we can't sort it. So screw Heaven, and your little temper tantrums because oh noes we’ve been left on our own we can’t handle it.  Earth’s not perfect but that’s kinda the point.  You’ve learned how to _deal._   Well, mostly.  So we came down here to help.”  She ran out of steam, and glared at Cas. “And I'm not going back.”

“How many…?” Cas sounded like he was almost afraid to hear the answer.

“Of us?  Not all.  Maybe, a third?  Scattered.  We meet occasionally, play a few hands of poker and update the gossip, but mostly…just doing our thing.  Staying off the radar.”

“So..you fell?”  Sam shifted his own beer, still full, between his hands, and leaned forward.

Avi snorted.  “You need serious Grace to fall.  We…slipped. About… fifty years ago?”  She looked to Tariq, and he nodded.  

“I was ten,” he said.  “You came into my sister’s body, and gave her life and movement again.  And scared me half to death.”

Avi grinned at him, affection and respect in every line of her body. “And you gave me shelter.  A home. A name.”

“You…didn’t have a name?  But I thought…?”  Dean almost laughed, despite everything.  Sam was obviously torn between being really lost, and totally geek-deep.  

“Angels have names.  We do not. We were pulled from the firmament like celestial taffy, shaped and set to work, but not even our Mother took count of us. They paid no attention to us, any more than you notice the difference between ATM machines. You use the one that's not broken, that has the shortest line, and that's all the thought you give it.  All the thought given to us.”  

“So yeah.  We…slipped away, came to earth.  And here?” Her eyes went dark, full of storms, and Dean couldn’t breathe for a second, a faint echo of the first time he’d looked into Castiel’s eyes, and seen too much within them. “Here, we have _names_.”

 

#

“Hey. You okay?”

“I…no, Dean, I am not.  I am…”  Castiel looked up at the sky, the stars glittering, this far from the city.  “I am ashamed.”

“Look, I’m not saying…”  Dean paused, trying to figure out exactly what he was saying.  “As it is above, so must it be below.  That’s what Gabriel said.  So I guess it’s not surprising - ask any secretary, any garbage collector, any waitress, they’re probably going to give you the same story.  And we’re pretty much past expecting Heaven to play by better rules, especially now.  Maybe God was better at it, but…I’m just saying, don’t be so hard on yourself  I know you, Cas.  You’re not the kind of guy who’s rude to the wait staff.  You never have been, not here, and I’m pretty sure not up there.”

“They were unnamed, Dean.  They were not given even the dignity of individuality…and yet Avi _became_ , as did others. Consciously, willfully…. Choosing to take humanity’s side, to aid Hunters, to stand against what they knew was wrong.”

“So yeah, she kicked your ass on the moral high ground.  I get it.  She also didn’t have that bitch going in and flipping her back to factory settings every couple of adventures, every time you tried to push back. So maybe, just this once, cut yourself a little slack, okay?”

“He can’t,”  Avi’s voice came out of the shadows, and she slipped into the light with a lithe grace that made Dean think that she was wasted, not hunting.  “There are two settings for angel, I’ve discovered: asshole, and martyr.  And they’re both annoying as hell.”

Dean’s lip quirked.  “She ain’t wrong, Cas.”

The angel sighed, but even in the dim light, they both could see his lips quirk up, just slightly, and Avi reached up to pat his shoulder, before she turned to head inside, leaving them to the night.

"Avika?"  Castiel's stopped her, and she paused at the door.

"Yeah?"

"You mentioned something about a poker game?"

She huffed a little in surprise.  "what, let middle management into the game?"  She paused, and then shook her head, smiling a little.  "Yeah... I think we can make an exception for you."  

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah, I've been poking at this idea for a few days, and then last night's ep made my fic-in-progress's backstory into canon, more or less, and I thought "oh hell, well so much for that." And then I thought "look, it's in my brain, might as well get it out." Two carafes of coffee later.... 
> 
> This was originally meant to be the start of a much longer piece, but, well, see above. I reserve the right to rework/extend it at some point when I actually have brain available.
> 
> Unbeta'd.


End file.
